University of Chicago to open India Centre

After Beijing and Paris, the University of Chicago will open an India centre to boost research and teaching collaborations but not a campus, at least in the near future.

The academic centre will be a “home for research and education for University of Chicago faculty, graduate students and undergraduates working in India and throughout South Asia, as well as Indian researchers and students representing a wide array of institutions and scholars from around the world”, the University said in a statement after the media briefing in New Delhi on Monday.

The centre will be ready by the end of March, president Robert J. Zimmer told reporters. “The centre in Delhi reflects the importance the university places on global engagement and our commitment in India and South Asia particularly,” said Zimmer.

The centre will promote scholarship and teaching under three broad umbrellas: business, economics, law and policy; science, energy, medicine and public health; and culture, society, religion and the arts. It will represent all parts of the university, including professional divisions.

The centre will not, however, grant degrees. “We are not for giving degrees through this,” Zimmer said. The opening of the centre has merely coincided with India’s willingness to open up its higher education sector, he said.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) on 10 September said that the government has got a go-ahead from the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and the Department of Economic Affairs to allow overseas universities to operate independently in India as non-profit ventures. The plan will be notified after being vetted by the Ministry of Law.

The Chicago Booth School of Business was not exploring an opportunity to open a centre in India, Zimmer said, adding that it has already established degree-granting centres in London and Singapore.

Gary Tubb, faculty director of the India centre, said it is exploring research collaborations with Indian institutes and the University’s study abroad programme will benefit from the India centre. The University is spending $3.45 million (around Rs. 210 million today) on physical infrastructure. A MHRD official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said top global universities opening centres in India and focusing on research collaborations can be viewed as a “good first step” towards them opening campuses in the country sometime in the future.

Source: Mint, October 29, 2013

Quietly, India makes foreign varsity collaborations harder

Only the best foreign universities and the top layer of Indian varsities will be allowed to collaborate under new regulations the University Grants Commission (UGC) is proposing, at a time when a long-awaited law to streamline global tie-ups lies entangled in a web of bureaucratic and political indecision. The UGC regulations will create a mechanism that will allow universities in the US, UK and other developed countries keen to tap the Indian student market an opportunity to join hands with Indian institutions to both offer academic programmes and to conduct research together.

But the new regulations finalized by the UGC at its last meeting are tougher than the Foreign Educational Institutions (FEI) Bill that global varsities were eying as their window into India. The UGC resolved that only “those foreign institutions which are accredited with the highest grade in their homeland should be allowed to collaborate with those Indian institutions which are also accredited with the highest grade by the recognized Indian accrediting agencies.”

Several public universities – including each of Gujarat’s seven universities and Kerala’s two varsities – which have a ‘B’ rating from the National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) will be unable to collaborate under the UGC regulations if the higher education regulator sticks to its resolution.

Internationally, while a few foreign universities – including Duke and VirginiaTech in the US – have expressed interest in setting up campuses in India, many others, including some Ivy League institutions, are keen on increased collaboration with Indian counterparts.

Currently, Indian institutions can conduct joint research on a project-by-project basis. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and many other public and private universities also have tie-ups for faculty and student exchange programmes with universities abroad. But Indian law forbids jointly offered degrees and more sustained research collaboration, and bars foreign universities from setting up brick and mortar campuses in India.

The FEI Bill, drafted both as an instrument to allow foreign institutions legal entry into India, and as a mechanism to regulate unauthorized programmes already running here, was introduced in Parliament in 2010. But the draft legislation – that requires applicant foreign institutions to be accredited but not necessarily with the highest grade – has remained stalled in the corridors of power since. The Parliament Standing Committee on human resource development has raised concerns about the legislation.

Sensing political opposition to the plan at a time when it is already struggling for numbers in Parliament, the UPA government has placed the FEI bill on a backburner. Instead, the UGC regulations are aimed at allowing collaboration without permitting brick and mortar campuses or standalone programmes offered by foreign institutions alone.

Source: Hindustan Times, April 5, 2013

‘We want more Indian students in Scotland’

Michael Russell, Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Education, is visiting India at a time when Europe is going through an economic crisis and, on the other hand, strict student visa rules are threatening UK universities. However, Russell’s agenda is clear — he wants more Indian students in Scottish universities. In a chat with FE’s Kirtika Suneja, he explains the reasons for doing so. Edited excerpts:

Scottish institutes have been partnering with Indian varsities very aggressively for the last few years. What is fuelling these collaborations?
Almost 95% of Scottish universities have collaborated with Indian institutes and we are focusing on India and China for higher education and, hence, encouraging Scottish institutions for partnerships. With globalisation of education, business education has become important in the global economy. In fact, the Scottish delegation to FICCI this year is the strongest ever. Of the total of 230,000 students in our universities, 3,185 are Indian students; thus, they make up just over 1%. However, it is worth noting that they make up 8% of international students and 14% of non-EU students. We want to increase the number of Indian students in Scotland.

How do you plan to achieve this?
There are three parts of education — drawing Indian students to Scotland, developing partnerships between institutions and producing different models in higher education by promoting high-level research. In fact, we have set up University of Strathclyde’s first overseas campus in Greater Noida near Delhi in partnership with infrastructure company SKIL. We will have more such long-term partnerships.

But constantly changing student visa rules in UK universities maybe a deterrent in achieving this …
We have opposed the visa regulations and are openly welcoming international students. We want internationalisation of Scottish education and, as a matter of fact, international students get us good business.

Besides partnerships, are Scottish universities also interested in setting up campuses in India, as is proposed in the Foreign Education Bill, or are mentoring the upcoming Innovation Universities?
We are interested in setting up new campuses — not only in India but elsewhere also. Mentoring the Innovation Universities is a good idea, especially in the areas of energy, liberal arts, creativity and teacher training.

Scotland has invested in research pools to encourage research. Where does India figure in the scheme of things?
Scotland and India have the potential to create research polls and over 150 million pounds have been invested in 11 research pooling investments. India is good for mechanical engineering and energy research.

What about promoting skills and training …
I am also looking after further education in Scotland that is developing the skills potential and encouraging the skills providers. We have a strong system of validation and credit framework. We are reforming the system of further education in Scotland by reducing the number of non-departmental public bodies.

Source: The Financial Express, November 14, 2011

The return of the Lab: Indian biological sciences researchers abroad returning home

Subba Rao Gangi Setty spends much of his time in a small cabin with an old fan whirring above. After arriving in Bangalore in July last year, the cell biologist has set up a lab at the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology in the Indian Institute of Science to study a disease called the Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome (HPS), a type of albinism. One of a handful of senior fellows supported by a joint funding programme of the Wellcome Trust, UK, and the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, Setty, a Green Card holder, returned to a much lower salary and an un-airconditioned office so he could pursue science in India. “I went to government schools and studied on government scholarships. I felt I owed it to my country to come back and do quality science here,” says the 37-year-old from Porumamilla village, Kadappa district, Andhra Pradesh, who spent over a decade in the US — long enough that he now rolls his r’s.

Raring for a change after nine years at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, US, Setty began looking out for opportunities in the biotech industry in 2009. The recession was setting in at the time, but with two Nature papers and several other high-quality publications to his name, he found work at Proteostasis Therapeutics, a small molecule drug company in Boston. For a year, he worked on modulation of cell biological pathways to cure protein folding defects implicated in neurodegenerative diseases. “It was then that I learned about the Wellcome Trust-DBT fellowship. I had been eager to come back to India since 2006, but now, an opportunity presented itself,” he says.

A silver Macbook sits on Setty’s desk. All around, there are piles of boxes. “The department is moving to a new building soon. Hopefully I’ll get more space,” he says. The money here may not compare with what he was making in the US, but a five-year research grant of Rs 4.58 crore fully supports his research programme. (Tissue culture, cell biological reagents and microscopy are pricey). With a newly-put-together team of eight researchers, Setty is now studying protein transport pathways in cells to understand the biology behind HPS and to develop cell biological screens for albinism with lung fibrosis. He has also set up an informal network and support group for people with HPS in India.

“It’s a good time to return to India,” says Vatsala Thirumalai, who leads a group on neural circuits and development at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), a Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) centre in Bangalore. A research scientist at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, till about a year ago, Thirumalai has set up a zebrafish incubator facility at NCBS to study the development of the brain in embryos. Hundreds of these nearly-transparent fresh water fish swim frantically in special tanks in her lab. Zebrafish are widely used in the biotech industry for drug screening, and Thirumalai, during her post-doctoral research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, showed that neural networks for swimming develop very early in zebrafish, but are kept dormant until later.

“Earlier, working in India meant you were cut off. Now, I regularly Skype with my collaborator at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego,” says the 36-year-old, also a Wellcome Trust-DBT India fellow. “Government initiatives like the Ramanujan Fellowship, the Ramalingaswami Fellowship and the DBT-Wellcome Trust Fellowship have helped immensely in attracting talent back to India. Also, India is now a full member of the international Human Frontier Science Program that funds research in life sciences,” she says.

There is a sense among academics that it is easier than ever to obtain funding and forge collaborations in India. A number of factors have contributed to this: cuts in research spend in the US, the Indian Government’s pro-active support to science, a maturing biotech industry, better research output, a new crop of research institutes, and last but not the least, the image of India as an emerging scientific superpower.

Dozens of Indian researchers working in biological sciences are leaving foreign shores for home. This “trickle” of scientists, many of whom own valuable intellectual property, is set to grow considerably in the coming years, says Vijay Chandru, chairman and CEO of Strand Life Sciences—a genomics solutions and bioinformatics company based in Bangalore—and president of the Association of Biotech-led Enterprises (ABLE), a trade body that represents the Indian biotech industry. Chandru, a former computer science professor at IISc, believes that with joint efforts by industry and government, biotech could be the next major ‘reverse brain drain’ sector after IT.

From a small industry in the early 1990s, biotechnology in India has grown to a $4 billion sector of possibility. There are about 350 companies, most of them located in seven clusters across India—Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Kolkata. “Since 2003, the industry has been growing steadily at over 20 per cent per annum. If we maintain this, we will be a $100 billion industry by 2025,” says Chandru. This growth could be spurred by demand for biosimilars—a new generation of protein-based drugs that could replace important biopharmaceuticals when they go off patent—and an expanding healthcare industry.

Strand Life Sciences, which has about 130 employees working out of an open-plan fifth-floor office in a business park on Bellary Road, Bangalore, has brought back 25 PhDs from the US in the last few years. “We were looking for people who could work with microarrays and high-tech equipment. So we hired researchers from NIH and other known institutes, mostly through referrals,” Chandru says.

Veena Hedatale is one such hire. A plant geneticist by training and a senior scientist at Strand, Hedatale gave three years to the US pharma industry before she decided to move back to Bangalore, where her family lives. An opportunity in the private sector that kept her in sync with happenings in biopharmaceuticals was just what she needed. “There is a huge difference in salaries between India and the US, but I was prepared for that,” says Hedatale, who just completed two years at Strand and hopes to start a product development company of her own one day.

Sushmita Gowri Sreekumar, another aspiring entrepreneur who joined the company about a year ago after completing a PhD programme in Zurich, says she sees a lot of promise in the Indian biotech sector. “When I decided to come back in June 2009, I knew I’d get a job or start my own diagnostics company. The number of institutes and biotech companies coming up in India is reassuring,” says Sreekumar, who has a PhD in cancer genetics.

FMCG majors like Unilever and ITC, too, are lapping up their share of the diaspora pie, says Amitabha Majumdar, a former post-doc at Cornell University, New York, who took up a position as a cell biologist at Unilever’s Whitefield office in January. “This opportunity was an excellent one. And it came at a time when many of my friends were planning to move back to India,” he says. According to Majumdar, Unilever Bangalore has hired at least four Indians from Yale, Oxford and Johns Hopkins Universities in just the last year. “A few years ago, there weren’t many cell biologists in India. Now I know many in Bangalore who are working in the same areas as I am,” says the 38-year-old who is researching immunity in cells. His wife, who just finished her PhD at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, is all set to join Indian biotechnology major Biocon.

Even as pharma and biotech companies in the West are laying off employees, India is looking for quality researchers to fill positions at new biosciences institutes such as the five Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER), the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute in Faridabad, and the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem) at NCBS, Bangalore. NCBS alone is responsible for bringing back half-a-dozen researchers in the last couple of years.

John Mercer, a professor at McLaughlin Research Institute, Montana, US, moved to Bangalore two months ago to run a high-throughput mice facility at inStem to help understand the molecular bases of inherited cardiomyopathy—a chronic disease of the heart muscle and one of the leading causes of cardiac death. “I see potential in the willingness of the Indian Government to invest in research. From my perspective, the US and Europe are turning away from their commitment to research and education while India’s commitment is increasing,” he says. The project, a collaboration between inStem, NCBS, Mercer’s home institute and Stanford University, among others, is funded entirely by the Indian Government. Mercer, who plans to stay on for two to five years, says he and his wife Colleen Silan are here for “the opportunity and the adventure”.

“A lot of money is being pumped into scientific infrastructure. It’s a positive sign for those looking to come back,” says Thirumalai. Kundan Sengupta agrees. After a six-year-long association with the National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, Sengupta moved base to Pune in July 2010. Now an assistant professor at IISER, Pune, the intermediate fellow of the Wellcome Trust-DBT India alliance is investigating how a basic biologic question: how do chromosomes find their correct location within a cell? “The growth of the biotech industry as well as the government’s research-oriented policies have encouraged many abroad to return to both academia and industry in India,” he says.

“It’s not just biotech, all of Indian bioscience is attracting diaspora back to India,” says Archana Purushotham, who moved to Bangalore four months ago to join inStem as a visiting scientist. A stroke specialist with experience in neuroimaging and research at Stanford University, Purushotham says inStem provided her with a unique opportunity. “It has truly been an exploratory expedition. As a practising physician who wants to spend a significant portion of time on research, some of it non-clinical, there is not much precedent in India. So it has been a challenge to blend both my worlds, and I am still in the process of trying to get it to work,” she says.

There are other, less obvious, draws. When Kaustuv Datta completed his Masters course from the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai in 1997, there were few good places in India where he could have pursued a PhD, prompting him to join the University of Michigan in the US. After nine years that he spent acquiring a PhD in molecular, cellular and developmental biology, and then doing post-doctoral research at the University of Michigan and the Scripps Research Institute, Datta returned to India in 2010 to join the University of Delhi as an assistant professor. While there is more money and infrastructure for research in the field now, Datta says it is the freedom to pursue “risky projects” at Indian universities that prompted his return.

“Tenure system is very strict in US universities. At the end of five to seven years as a post-doctoral fellow, you are evaluated on the number of papers published in that time and so on and granted tenure. It is a make or break system and prevents people from taking up risky projects. Universities here provide more secure positions, and independence to take up projects as you wish. This is a place where you can find your own identity as a researcher instead of being a post-doctoral fellow abroad working on someone else’s ideas,” he says.

There are, however, serious challenges to tapping the biotech diaspora. Biotech research entails considerable capital outlay and doesn’t lend itself to entrepreneurship the way IT does. And unlike IT professionals, biotech researchers often do long post-doctoral stints, so by the time they have established themselves and are ready to move back, they are already pushing 40. “Displacement becomes much harder then. The kids are already grown up and they don’t want to move. To come back to India at such a point in one’s life, the terms have to be very attractive,” says Vijay Chandru, speaking from experience. Sitting in her office surrounded by the smells of the lab, Vatsala Thirumalai is hopeful India will get its due. “As Thomas Friedman would say, the world of biosciences is now truly flat,” she says.

Source: The Indian Express, October 30, 2011

Australia willing to boost education ties with India

Australia will boost education and research collaboration with India to help it tide its demand for skilled workforce in the areas of faculty capacity building and curriculum renewal. “Australia is committed to strengthening education and training ties with India. Opportunities for Australia in India are vast,” Parliamentary Secretary for School Education Senator Jacinta Collins has told the inaugural Australia-India Institute (AII) conference held in Melbourne.

Collins, who was representing Minister for Tertiary Education and Skills Senator Chris Evans, also reaffirmed the strength of Australia and India’s bilateral education relationship. “India aims to increase its formally skilled workforce through vocational education and training from the current 12 per cent to 25 per cent by 2017 – an additional 70 million people in the next five years.

“Australia is well placed to help India achieve this objective. Providers and companies are already developing low cost models of quality Australian training provision in India,” she said. “India is looking for assistance from its international partners in a number of areas including in faculty capacity building, curriculum renewal, and provision of quality education and training to enable India to meet skilling targets. Australia, as a valued partner, is well placed to assist,” she said.

“Harmonising our education and training systems to increase student and staff mobility is also a key goal for both countries,” she added. Earlier, Evans had visited India with a delegation of Australian education and industry leaders for the annual Education Ministers Dialogue and to inaugurate the Australia India Education Council (AIEC).

The visit helped strengthen the bilateral relationship, with the governments discussing opportunities for education, training and research collaboration with India. The two governments also announced a range of new exchange programs for academics and college principals, and a new website to foster closer education and training collaboration.

In Australia, the senator said the government continued to implement measures to strengthen the international education sector including tighter controls on providers, an International Students Strategy and expanding the role of the Commonwealth Ombudsman to deal with international student complaints against private providers.

“These measures support the government’s recent reforms to enhance the integrity of the student visa program and refocus the skilled migration program to deliver the high value skills the Australian economy needs over the medium to long term,” Collins said. On September 22, Australia announced new visa rules to attract foreign students.

Source: The Times of India (Online Edition), October 13, 2011

>Gates Foundation sanctions Rs. 4.6 million to Punjab Agri University

> Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has sanctioned Rs. 46 lakh (Rs. 4.6 million) to Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) to undertake research on poverty in the state. With an objective of tracking changes in rural poverty in the household and village economies of Punjab, the project will initially run for three years (2011-14) and is likely to be extended for another five years, an official release said.

Mr. Manjit Singh Kang, Vice Chancellor, PAU said the project is need of the hour as the state is reeling under economic squeeze, indebtedness and farmer suicides, and poverty ratio in small and marginal farmers and agriculture labourer household have risen in recent years. He said the main purpose of the project is to develop data base at farmer household level on consumption and production parameters, and track changes in poverty and other economic variables over time.

Aiming at strengthening capacity building in the university for further policy analysis in the agriculture sector, the project will be implemented in all the three zones representing sub-mountainous areas, Central Punjab and Southern Punjab. The district level data for agriculture sector will also be collected to arrive at a clearer profile on the spatial attributes and correlates of poverty.

R. S. Sidhu, Principal Investigator (Project)-cum-Dean, College of Basic Sciences and Humanities, PAU, said this project concurrently runs in India and Bangladesh and is being implemented by National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research (NCAP), New Delhi and ICRISAT, Hyderabad.

At first, the project was intended to be taken up in Semi-Arid Tropics and Humid Tropics India and Punjab was not intended in its coverage, he said. During the launch of this project in India in 2009, a meeting with Gates Foundation at Delhi was held where they (Kang and Sidhu) pitched for the inclusion of Punjab in the ambit of this study because of its relevance and importance.

Source: Press Trust of India, April 26, 2011

>IIT-Madras, Lafarge to launch cement research project

>The first joint project by French cement major Lafarge Group’s research arm and the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) is expected to kick start soon, an official said here on Wednesday. Speaking to reporters, Revindra Gettu, professor at IIT-M’s Department of Civil Engineering, said the research project will test the durability of concrete as a building material in different climatic conditions.

The cement major’s research arm, Lafarge Research Centre, and IIT-M last year signed a Memorandum of Understanding, under which the IIT’s civil engineering department set up a laboratory to carry out joint research programmes. Lafarge Research Centre has funded the laboratory to the tune of Rs.1.5 crore (Rs. 15 million) over a period of three years.

According to Prof. Gettu, the tests will be conducted on concrete in different parts of India to identify the carbonation and its effects on concrete in different atmospheric conditions. “Lafarge aims to improve the performance of concrete to address sustainable construction and global warming challenges. This is done through cutting-edge scientific research and forming partnerships with other institutes and organizations,” said Pascal Casanova, head of Lafarge Group’s Research and Development.

The French group has four cement plants in India – two in Chhattisgarh, and one grinding plant each in Jharkhand and West Bengal. Lafarge has also set up a gypsum plasterboard plant at Khushkhera in Rajasthan.

Source: http://www.indiaedunews.net, March 23, 2011

>30 MoUs signed at IIT Conclave in Gujarat

>Along with prominent IIT alumni, heads of institutes and companies signed 30 Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) at the IIT Conclave organised at Nirma University on Monday. These knowledge sharing MOUs include 15 signed between the Pan-IIT Gujarat Alumni Association and the government of Gujarat in various areas including castor production, improving agricultural productivity using nanotechnology, urban waste management, solar energy and skills development in the state, among others. The alumni association will be coming up with a possible technology driven solution to the government within three months.

Furthermore, 15 MoUs were signed between various companies and prominent educational institutes and the government of Gujarat, for setting up Centres of Excellence in areas like the ceramics industry, chemical industry, environment protection, solid waste management and more. Apart from the signing of MOUs, delegates from all over India and abroad discussed various issues such as innovation and value-based education to secure economic leadership for Gujarat in the 21st century.

Addressing the audience at the conclave, Chief Minister Narendra Modi called upon the IIT alumni to design technology that can be used for social upliftment of the people of the state. “I want technology to be used in all spheres of life which in turn would lead to good governance. I believe in minimum government and maximum governance,” added Modi. He urged the IITians to help the government in making the Forensic Science University a world class institute. He also stressed on the need to involve engineers of IIT as the evaluators of projects like BRTS.

Former chief minister of Goa, Manohar Parrikar, an alumnus of IIT-Powai, was also present on the occasion. Dr. RN Vakil, Director of CEPT signed two MOUs with the Gujarat government to develop a centre of excellence in the field of energy, environment and infrastructure. Dr. Sudhir K. Jain, Director of IIT-GN, signed an MOU on behalf of IIT-GN, to set up a centre of excellence for the chemical industry. ATIRA also signed four MOUs for their centres of excellence as well. United Phosphorus Ltd. also signed an MOU for environment protection.

Source: DNA (Online Edition), January 12, 2011

>Gujarat institutes tie up with foreign varsities, companies for research

>Eleven educational institutes and universities based in Gujarat signed MoUs with foreign universities, companies and research institutes at the first pre-summit session of “Vibrant Gujarat 2011 — the International Roundtable of Academic Institutions” on Monday. Seventy six MoUs were inked at the signing ceremony presided by Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and the state’s education principal secretary Hasmukh Adhia at the Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Gandhinagar.

“Research is the essence for future development. I assure you that Gujarat has a society that will offer an ambience of risk-taking and entrepreneurship so that the fruits of research is enjoyed by common man,” Modi told the delegates. The MoUs broadly deal with establishing centres of excellence and R&D centres, economic research, student and faculty exchange and research activities, technology commercialisation, teacher’s training, research in sustainability in energy and environment, placements, visiting faculty, PG education, establishing a chair professor, curriculum development and joint utilisation of infrastructure.

Among the foreign universities that signed MoUs were the universities of California, Pennstate, Western Ontario, UCLA, Oklahoma, Saskatchewan (Canada), Kansas, Manuela Bertran, Thames Valley, Maryland and Papperdine. Among the state universities, PDPU and Gujarat Technological University both signed 14 MoUs each.

Source: The Financial Express, January 11, 2011

RV College, Bangalore inks pact with University of Western Australia

Bangalore-based RV College of Engineering has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with University of Western Australia (UWA) for cooperation in teaching and research. The tie-up will enable the college to send students as well as faculty to the premier Australian university for pursuing their research.

On the occasion of the signing ceremony, Prof. Robyn Owens, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the university said, “India presents a wonderful opportunity for research collaborations with UWA, since we share a unique set of common and complementary interests.” According to the academician, the tie-up will help both the institutes to devise solutions for common problems with regards to agriculture, environment, biodiversity, nanotechnology and health.

The MoU will help in exchange staff, joint research activities, joint conferences and exchange of academic materials as well as exchange of students.

B.S. Satyanarayana, Principal of RV College of Engineering noted that MoU will help students who are interested in research. “We look forward to this relationship as many of our areas of interest in terms of sustainable development and renewable energy activities match with the advanced R&D activities,” said the principal.

The institutes might also give dual degrees in the long run, where a student can pursue one year at RVCE and another year in Australia. However, it does not have plans to set up offshore campuses in the city or country. The university has tied up with premier institutes like IIT Kharagpur to enhance the relationships between the universities.

Source: Deccan Herald, October 14, 2010